Wonny Song

Wonny Song has an exciting and multifaceted international career as one of Canada’s most outstanding young concert pianists. He is widely praised through his recitals, concerto appearances and recordings for his wonderfully poetic touch, depth of musical insight and charismatic personality. He also performs regularly as part of Montreal’s Trio Fibonacci and with the Canadian piano duo 20/88.

Winner of the 2010 Young Canadian Musician Award as well as the 2002 Galaxie Rising Star Award, he has appeared with over 40 different orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony, Montréal Symphony, Toronto Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Euro Asian Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea and Thailand, l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, Orchestra of St-Luke’s, I Musici de Montréal, Latvian National Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra.

Equally at home with chamber music repertoire, he has appeared in festivals such as the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, the Lachine Music Festival, the Young Concert Artists Festival in Tokyo, and the Seattle Chamber Music Festival.

His first CD, a recording of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli was a bestseller in Canada. His other CD releases include Beethoven’s Early Piano Sonatas, and Poulenc’s L’histoire De Babar and Debussy’s La Boite à Joujoux in collaboration with renowned narrator Edgar Fruitier. His latest CD, Clair de Lune was also a major success, with over 20,000 copies sold in North America.

Wonny was born in South Korea and grew up in Montreal, where he still lives. In 1994, he received a full scholarship to Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. He continued his studies with Anton Kuerti at the University of Toronto and with Marc Durand at the Glenn Gould Professional School. He completed his Doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota in 2004.

Wonny has won many prestigious awards: first prize and prize for best artistic interpretation at the Montréal Symphony Piano Competition (1995), gold medal at the Cincinnati International Piano Competition (1994) and Canada’s Prix d’Europe (2003). As winner of the 2005 Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York, he made his recital debuts at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in New York, sponsored by the Claire Tow Prize, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society.

In addition to concertizing, Wonny is engaged in music education, advancement of young artists, and artistic direction activities. He is a director at the Lambda School of Music and Fine Arts in Montréal, vice president of Fondation Père Lindsay in Quebec City, and artistic director of the prestigious Orford Music in the Eastern Townships.

He has appeared on the Mooredale Concerts stage in 2010, 2014, and will appear again in early 2018!